Interpol issues red-corner notice against key Godhra accused

VADODARA: Saukat Ahmed Charkha, one of the key accused in the infamous Godhra train carnage, was issued a red-corner notice for by the Interpol, police said here.

Sources in the Special Investigating Team (SIT), which is probing the Godhra carnage, said Charkha, a member of the core group that conspired to set the Sabarmati Express on fire at Godhra station on February 27, 2002, was now in Pakistan. The Interpol had been given the whereabouts of the accused in Pakistan through the CBI.

This is the second red-corner notice to be issued against Godhra train carnage accused. Earlier, a similar notice was issued against another prime suspect Salim Panwala, who escaped from his Godhra house in 2004 following heavy stone pelting by the local residents on a raiding police team.

Sources said both Charkha and Panwala were party to the conspiracy, which was hatched at a meeting held in the Aman guest house in Godhra on February 25, 2002. Maulana Umarji, believed to be the prime conspirator in the train carnage case, had already been arrested.

The SIT claimed that Charkha had brought petrol to the Godhra station from a petrol pump in the signal Falia and also poured it on the s-6 coach with others, causing the death of 59 passengers and karsevaks who were returning from Ayodhya.